Stormwater Taxes Challenged

HAMPTON — Greg Twietmeyer hasn't paid one dime of the more than $250 in taxes he owes to help clean up pollution in the city's waterways, something the Hampton landlord doesn't try to hide.

In fact, he challenges the city to come and collect what he considers an illegal tax: the $30 a year in stormwater fees that each homeowner pays, and the $150 a year that each business pays.

Twietmeyer owns and rents about 10 homes or apartment buildings in the city. The city treasurer's office said they were not sure exactly how much money he owed, but said it was at least $250.

Twietmeyer is right when he argues that the stormwater fee is illegal, according to a letter from Virginia Attorney General James Gilmore.

The fee in Hampton violates state law because it does not base the charges on how much polluted water runs off a residential or commercial property and instead simply charges a flat rate, Gilmore wrote in a January letter.

Gilmore reviewed the fee at the request of Del. Vincent Behm, D-Hampton, after Twietmeyer and other residential real estate owners complained to Behm.

The opinion is not legally binding.

Most other Hampton Roads cities base the fee on runoff. Newport News, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach have charged businesses based on runoff since they started collecting the fee, said John Carlock, director of environmental planning with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.

Those cities all charge residential property a flat fee because it's too cumbersome to calculate runoff for each home, he said.

Norfolk used a flat fee for a short time, but has abandoned it in favor of the system used by the other cities, he said. Portsmouth still uses a flat fee, but is looking to change it, Carlock said.

Hampton City Attorney Paul Burton, however, said Gilmore's interpretation of the state law is ``impractical.''

The city was required by the federal government to begin reducing stormwater pollution in 1993, but did not have good enough information in city records at the time to develop a sophisticated fee that meets Gilmore's interpretation of the state law, Burton said.

City officials said that in 1993 they would develop their more sophisticated plan by this year, Burton said. The City Council will consider a proposal later this month to bring stormwater fees into compliance with state law.

The city turned over the names of people who haven't paid the fee to a collection agency this week, said Barbara Sapp, a real estate accounts clerk for Treasurer Robert Quinn.

The stormwater fee pays for a federally mandated effort to clean up silt, oils and other chemicals that wash into city drains and make their way untreated into local waterways.

The new plan will charge residential property owners a flat fee, but will meet state law because it will bill businesses based on how much runoff they send into the city's drainage system, officials said.

The new fee charges businesses based on how much of their property is covered by hard surfaces, which hastens runoff by preventing water from soaking into the ground.

The new fee still bills each of the city's 45,000 homes the same rate, rather than accounting for the size of the home, because it would be too cumbersome to measure each home and see how much runoff it generates, City Engineer Fred Whitley said.

The city based the fee on the average amount of covered surface for 1,600 homes, he said.

Twietmeyer wants the city to think about refunding the more than $2 million it has collected since 1993.

``It's not that I'm a tax evader,'' Twietmeyer said.

``We pay our real estate taxes and I've paid the stormwater fee in Newport News because their system is fairer.''

But Gilmore's letter said ``it does not necessarily follow'' that Hampton must refund the money. That decision belongs with the council, he wrote.